Making Headlines: All Points West Distillery In The Media

“… All Points West’s unctuous, full-bodied whiskey is impressive throughout its product lineup, but the Malt and Grain Pot Still Whiskey stands out as the most unique among them. This is old-school whiskey transported into present-day Newark, NJ, and it’s as unexpected and unexpectedly delicious as you can imagine.”

“a nose of fragrant and pleasant dry rye spice … the finish is wonderfully long … Great texture, flavors, and integration; a very nice example of the category.”

There’s nothing like the sweet, smokey, woodsy taste of bourbon. It is arguably the quintessential American spirit because it uses an ingredient native to the West – corn.

But this close relative of whiskey didn’t drop down from the sky. It was the result of centuries of experimentation with new distilling techniques and new ingredients.

Gil Spaier, owner of Newark’s All Points West Distillery, calls these bygone whiskey recipes “orphan styles” as they were eventually abandoned or regulated out of existence. Around 2017, he became so fascinated by the history of whiskey making that he recreated what he believes is a lost 19th-century spirit.

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His love of Irish whiskey and his curiosity about what a guest at a 19th-century pub might have been sipping on was the source of Spaier’s inspiration for one of his best-loved labels: Malt and Grain Pot Still Whiskey. He believes it captures a blip in history when distillers back in Ireland began copying Americans by using ingredients like corn in their pot still whiskey. The use of corn lasted only until 1908 when, to preserve the identity of Irish whiskey, the recipe was outlawed.

“My favorite Irish whiskey is Redbreast,” Spaier said. “When I found out it could have been at one time much richer in corn character, I became excited about making one.”

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All Points West Malt & Grain Pot Still Review

Rex and Daniel’s review of APW Malt and Grain Pot Still Whiskey begins 2:35 min. into this 12:05 min. long video.

History –and the future– In Every Sip

“If there’s soft water, good water, you can make beer and you can make leather, and Newark made both big breweries, big tanneries, and, for the immigrant, lots of wet, smelly, crushing work.”                                           

Philip Roth, American Pastoral 

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All Points West is named after the old Jersey Central Railroad that carried passengers from Ellis Island and Jersey City to “All Points West.” Newark was the cheapest ticket and first stop west and it became a magnet for many beer-drinking and beer-making immigrants from different countries, referenced in author Philip Roth’s quote above.

The other important component in that quote was the quality of the water. Once Newark invested in its own watershed in northern New Jersey at the turn of the last century as opposed to relying on the tributaries of the Passaic River that were becoming increasingly polluted, beer production quadrupled. When asked why he chose Newark over other communities, Spaier was quick to say, “I wanted the water from the Newark watershed and didn’t want to be dependent on well water like in some communities.”

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Winning Whiskey Architect

Sliding his love of structure from old buildings to old potions, Gil Spaier brings renown to Newark’s Ironbound

Maybe if he had never read Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, which stopped him on page 11 with a gritty ode to old industrial Newark and its soft water, Gil Spaier would still be a practicing architect and not an award-winning whiskey maker. 

But the passage piqued Spaier’s interest in the waves of immigrants who had pioneered and staffed Newark’s breweries in the Ironbound, the neighborhood into which he and his wife had just moved.

Fast-forward 16 years. In August, Spaier’s barely 2-year-old craft distillery, All Points West, located in the Ironbound, won three awards in the prestigious annual competition run by USA Spirits Ratings. 

His 92 proof Malt and Grain Pot-Still Whiskey won a gold medal, was named Whisky of the Year, and, for its understated bottle design and informative labeling, earned Best Spirit of the Year by Packaging.

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The name All Points West comes from a catchphrase of the old Jersey Central Railroad, which connected Newark to the American interior. “What I love about this neighborhood, on the Eastern terminus, is that it’s so immigrant,” he says. “So I wanted to to make something that could elucidate that history a bit.” (The water in the Ironbound has been completely free of the lead contamination that has affected other parts of the city.)

He comfortably slid from researching the evolution of architectural styles to doing the same with whiskeys. The history is long and dizzyingly political. It reaches back to 1785, when British tariffs on malted barley led distillers in Ireland to add unmalted grains, eventually including American corn, to their recipes. Those new whiskeys, made in old-fashioned pot stills, “became the most popular whiskeys in the world,” Spaier says. The breaking point came in 1908, when the Brits banned the use of American corn in pot-still whiskies. 

Planning All Points West, Spaier says he seized upon “the idea of making Irish-style pot-still whiskies with corn, which hadn’t been done commercially since 1908. I’m the first commercial whiskey to do that in 110 years.”

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Episode 31: The (Indoor) Garden State

Newark, New Jersey is more than meets the eye. There's an under-the-radar food movement going on "The Gateway City," and we ventured across the Hudson River to check it out! We start at Philip's Academy Charter School to see how Ecospaces Education is transforming the way students eat and incorporating food into curriculum. Then, we head to the Ironbound neighborhood to taste the historically-charged spirits of All Points West Distillery and some of the finest presunto ibérico at Caseiro E Bom. The grand finale of our Newark tour is tour of AeroFarms, the world's largest vertical indoor farm. We bring you inside to hear how AeroFarms uses aeroponics to grow local leafy greens year-round with 390 times more productivity and 95% less water than field farming.

Listen to the 3:37 min. section with Gil Spaier of All Points West below — or listen to the full episode at the second link.